Things My Daughter Should Know After I've Died
by Ziggy Sternenstaub
Summary: Young Shmi Skywalker works as a waitress in a café, dividing her time between demanding customers and old sadness, until the day a strange, magical woman walks through the door...


This is a one-shot that I've written recently, so need to worry that I'm going to start a new story that will lay fruitless for five years, er. This fic is a little different, something of a literary exploration, but I hope that you will enjoy it.

Dedicated to Ansketil, who inspired it. I bet you'll figure it out more quickly than anyone. ;)

* * *

**Things My Daughter Should Know After I've Died**

By Ziggy Sternenstaub

"_I spent my whole life walking _

_and hid such colourful wings."_

--Things my son should know after I've died, Brian Trimboli

The sun had heated up the moon's mid-day until it was as hot and sticky as a sauna. Sweat was pouring down Shmi Skywalker's temples and forehead; soaking her underarms and creating unsightly damp patches on her sheer, layered gold sari. Those patches were clearly visible as she held up the heavy tray filled with drinks and skilfully manoeuvred through the walking crowd of customers, waiters and waitresses. The cafe was one of the nicer ones, and salacious encounters with drunken spice miners were thankfully few, but the ignorant snobbery exhibited by minor bank clerks and receptionists who earned little more than Shmi did was only slightly better. Stoically, the waitress endured the disdainful glances and condescending addresses of her customers, taking orders with a pleasant if tired smile.

"Quite a crowd today," a green Twi'lek waitress commented as Shmi slipped back into the kitchen.

"The lunchers are staying longer than usual," Shmi agreed placidly, slipping the blue scarf from her head and wiping the sweat from her brow.

"And they're not even tipping," the Twi'lek groused.

Shmi nodded with some consternation. Even with tips, she made barely enough credits to keep her little room in the local boarding house. Without tips, it was going to be a very difficult week. Shmi thought consolingly of the half-price meals she was entitled to at the cafe.

"Skywalker! Yoopra! Get back on the floor!" the owner-cum-head cook screamed at them from the stoves. Shmi exchanged a wry glance with Yoopra before picking up her orders and heading back out. Checking on drinks and taking new orders, the young woman barely saw the cafe's double doors swing open, but she did feel a new wave of sticky heat sweep in to displace the muggy cloud that was already hanging thickly in the air. Slowly straightening up, Shmi placed her empty tray on the bar and stretched her aching back while she took in the new arrival with surprised puzzlement.

The newest customer was a petite woman dressed in clothes too rich for the highest ranking banker ever to have walked through the café doors. Flared, heavy purple velvet skirts liberally embroidered with what looked like real silver tapered into a wine-coloured corset laced up so tightly that the woman's small breasts were set off to magnificent effect. Her face, while by no means classically beautiful, was no less impressive: dramatic cheekbones, narrow, predatory nose, and pale blue eyes. Her high forehead was topped by a striking widow's peak of golden hair pulled up into a sweeping chignon, liberally highlighted by grey streaks that dignified more than they aged.

Staring at this woman who looked like a painting and carried herself like a queen, Shmi swiped her swollen red hands on her sari and glanced at the mirror behind the bar to examine her tired face.

The strange woman settled herself into a remote table that just happened to be in Shmi's assigned area, rearranging her skirt into a graceful sweep before picking up the indulgent paper menu. The waitress allowed a minute or two to pass, only making her way over the table when the lady had carefully returned the drink card to the same standing position in which she had found it. Still walking over, Shmi admired the other woman's small, delicate hands, their meticulous movements charming the waitress's soft brown eyes.

"Greetings, Lady," Shmi said softly. "May I offer you a refreshment?"

The woman smiled: a slight, soft curving of her delicate lips that animated her stern face. "Iced black berry tisane, thank you."

Shmi offered a slight bow and swept off to fulfill the order, glancing back once in time to see the woman remove a palm computer from her lace-covered handbag. The pace was dying down as the local lunch crowd finally began to file back to the banks and offices, and as the dense pack of bodies thinned out, the air cooled slightly. Shmi stopped to gratefully gulp down a tall glass of water. She picked up the strange woman's drink on her way back out. The customer was still examining her palm computer, but she put it down and smiled again when Shmi set the slim, frosted glass in front of her.

"Thank you, my dear," she murmured. Her voice was musical, Core-cultured; her tone strangely maternal in a fashion that made Shmi feel much younger than her thirty one Standards. Helplessly, the waitress blushed and offered a tentative smile to her customer. She was answered by an even deeper smile, a strangely conspiratorial expression that made Shmi feel as though she were on the edge of uncovering deep mysteries.

The moment was broken as the small computer let out a beep and the woman's eyes flickered down to examine it.

"I may take a break from business, but business never takes a break from me," she quipped.

"Are you here for the spice mining summit?" Shmi asked, surprising herself with her boldness.

"Ah, no. I'm here on something of a diplomatic mission…Shmi," the lady added with a glance at the waitress's name plate.

"I apologise for my boldness," Shmi said hastily. "Would you like to order a lunch? We have a shell-fish soup made with local species from the planet--."

"Calm yourself," the woman murmured soothingly. "I am not about to report you for asking a simple question. My name is Anyel. It does not seem quite fair that I should know your name, and you should not know mine."

"My apologies, Lady Anyel," Shmi repeated herself with another slight bow.

Anyel chuckled richly. "Simply Anyel will do. Don't you think?"

"I'm not sure that it is proper," Shmi pointed out prudently.

"Sometimes what is proper is not what is right," Anyel said with a slow shrug of her shockingly pale, bared shoulders. "I would appreciate if you would call me by my name. I feel…as though we have met before."

Even more confused, Shmi felt compelled to move closer to her odd customer.

"I'll have the soup," Anyel ordered gently, and the waitress moved in a fog, typing the order into her own palm computer to send it to the kitchens before she drifted away from the table.

Back in the kitchens, it seemed to Shmi as though a great bubble had been popped, the absence letting in the cook's shouting and the harsh scent of grease. Passing by the stoves, the waitress picked up the creamy, fragrant pink soup that was already waiting for her. Her footsteps were as quick as was safely possible and she delivered the soup while avoiding Anyel's eyes. The waitress suddenly felt as wary of this magnificent woman as she was drawn to her, but even avoiding her, Shmi felt Anyel's gaze follow her over the course of the next hour. Once every few minutes, the waitress would sneak a glance at the remote table, and never once did she catch the lady watching her, yet Shmi trusted her instincts, and she knew that those steady blue eyes were fixed to her back.

It was therefore with some surprise and disappointment that, perhaps an hour later, she noted her customer stand and pay her bill at the bar. Anyel seemed to have completely forgotten Shmi, and why should she not? The insignificant Miss Skywalker was only a waitress, the daughter of equally insignificant spice miners who had died young as so many of their kind did.

* * *

The rest of the day passed with painful slowness. The work felt more frustratingly dull than usual, the customers more ordinary and uninteresting measured in the rich woman's wake. When Shmi's ten hour shift finally ended, she changed into her drab street clothing, wrapping an ancient grey scarf around her lush brown hair--her one truly beautiful feature, she believed, sadly concealed by the dictates of cultural fashion.

Though cooler than the mid-day swelter, the night remained swathed in roving clouds of smoke and smog, and Shmi pulled her scarf over her mouth, holding it there awkwardly as she ducked her head and kept to the shadows. She was anxious to avoid the attention of the drunken labourers who came stumbling out of the pubs that lined the main drag, raucous bars which became more numerous as the young waitress approached the working class neighbourhood of her boarding house.

Shmi hesitated at the third to last intersection, noting that the street lights had been destroyed. Multiple fragments of glass were strewn across the road, glinting--deceptively magical--in the gargantuan shadow of the planet and the halo of more distant street lamps. Across the street, the aurora receded into sinister shadows, and Shmi squinted her eyes, trying to make out any passers-by. A moment passed as she held her breath, hearing and seeing nothing but far away echoes of laughter--adult laughter. Life went on here as it went on everywhere else, and children were plentiful, but on a moon frequently plagued by slavers, children were kept safely locked behind their parents' doors after dark.

Just as Shmi was about to take a step out into the street, a large hovercraft whizzed by, a human male hanging out the back, screaming at the top of his lungs: "Woooooooooooo! Hey baby!"

The waitress jumped back onto the pavement, dropping the scarf from her face in her haste. When the sound of the speeder receded into nothingness, the woman skittered across the street. She jogged lightly, trying to make it to the next well-lit crosswalk without further incident but, with her head down again, she did not notice the man who appeared in front of her until it was too late.

"Hey, can I bum a credit?" the large human asked, crowding into her space.

Unconsciously Shmi clutched her handbag closer to her chest. "I really don't have much to spare. I need to pay my rent tomorrow…."

"Just one or two would be great. I'm really strapped."

The pragmatic part of her wanted to decline, but knowing how many people had far less to their name than she did, Shmi nodded reluctantly and slowly opened up her bag. She was horrified but not terribly surprised when the man reached out to snatch the purse from her hands. Only her habitually tight grip prevented the thief from immediately succeeding.

"Give me the bag or you die!" the man screamed, pulling a vibro-blade from his back pocket.

Shmi took off running, terrified to hear the pounding footsteps of her pursuer catching up with her. Her skirts caught between her legs, and she stumbled, landing hard and skinning her hands on the rough pavement. A pained yelp escaped her, and she twisted around to stand up again, only to find her attacker looming over her with a grin that was part anger, part triumph.

"Shoulda given me the money, slut," the man slurred. "Now you're really gonna get it."

Shmi blanched at the implication, but kept her fear as tightly reigned in as she could. Begging or screaming would only anger her attacker further.

"I have thirty credits in my bag. Please take them all," she said with only a slight quaver to her voice.

"Oh, I'm gonna take 'em all; don't you worry. But I'm gonna take something' else, too," he said with a lascivious grin.

"I think not," a cool voice sounded from behind the thief. The timbre was so dark and deep that it was almost sexless, but Shmi thought that the speaker might be female.

The man spun around, and the waitress quickly scrambled a metre away.

"Get outta here or I'll do you, too!" the thief barked.

Shmi stood up in time to see a slight, hooded form advance on the attacker. One gloved hand emerged from the enveloping black cloak, stabbing at the air menacingly.

"You will leave _now_." Impossibly, the voice dropped into an even lower register, birthing a hollow growl that sent terrified shivers through Shmi's entire body.

"Who are you?" the thief demanded. His aggressive posture failed to conceal his growing wariness.

"Leave now, and you will not find out," the newcomer whispered. "Pray to your gods that you never do."

A growing air of mystical peril saturated the isolated street, and outside of the thief's heavy, harsh breathing, Shmi could hear nothing--not the zooming engines of hovercrafts; not the yowls of combative house pets; not even so much as the scurrying of vermin. Increasingly alarmed, Shmi wanted to leave; wanted to run, but when she tried she found her feet lrooted to the ground.

"Leave now," the small cloaked figured repeated in a whisper even more remote than the last, sounding almost indifferent. That seemed to matter nothing to the thief, though, because he started to move, keeping his eyes firmly on the interloper as though backing away from a dangerous predator that might attack if he showed it his back. When he reached the corner of the intersection some twenty metres away, he finally turned and began to run. Pounding, erratic footsteps quickly faded away.

The presence of the newcomer was still heavy, but the menace had vanished, and when Shmi forced herself to turn, she was astonished to see Anyel's pale blue eyes regarding her.

"You!" she gasped.

Anyel chuckled lightly. "I apologise for the ruse, but I expect that I appeared more menacing looking as though I were a Sith out of legend, rather than simply a poor, weak woman." She smiled ironically, clearly not believing herself to be the latter. Nor could Shmi make the leap.

"I do not believe that you have ever been a 'poor, weak woman,'" the waitress said quietly as she regarded the other female with level eyes.

Slowly and very seriously, Anyel nodded, and Shmi was again struck by the impression of having been let in on a great secret.

"You are a very perceptive woman, Shmi," Anyel said gently. "And a very intelligent one, I expect. What are you doing on this gods-forsaken moon? You deserve better than this."

"I was born here," Shmi answered simply.

Anyel adopted a disapproving expression. "Your birth does not determine your future. You have the capacity to move beyond this squalor."

"How? I am a thirty-one year old waitress who will soon be thirty-two. I have no education and no training. I have no money. I was born here, and I will very likely die here. That is the way of the world. The way of my world."

An expression of helpless fury passed over Anyel's face, transforming her briefly once more into something unearthly and terrible, and Shmi flinched back in the face of that power. The other woman must have noticed, because she reigned herself in visibly before quickly advancing to grasp Shmi's arm.

"Come with me!" Anyel demanded.

"Come with you where?" Shmi asked slowly.

Anyel shook her head briskly and tugged on Shmi's arm. The waitress followed, keeping mystified pace with the wealthy woman as they inevitably wound their way outside of the city core and into the star-soaked plain that bordered the lone metropolis. Stepping onto the immense field of moon dust, Shmi caught her breath at the display she so rarely took the time to see.

"It's very quiet here, isn't it?" Anyel said solemnly.

"Yes," Shmi whispered, reluctant to infringe on that quiet.

"Nothing like that absurdly self-important little village," Anyel scoffed. "This--_this_--is the gateway to the universe. There are a million worlds in the galaxy, and a million lives to live on every one of those worlds. Why would you stay here when you could have that?"

Shmi hesitated, reluctant to give the same answer that she had the first time. She searched for something that applied not simply to every poor man and woman in the city, but only to herself. She suspected that Anyel would not like her answer.

"I…do not need more," she finally admitted.

"Do not _need _more?"

Shmi nodded, regarding at her companion seriously before looking back up at the stars. "I am not ambitious, Lady Anyel. I need only to provide for myself, and my joys are as many here working in a simple café as they would be if I lived in a palace. I am…at peace."

"And if had to provide for more than just yourself?"

Shmi caught her breath. "What do you mean?"

"Do not play coy, Shmi. If you had a child."

The waitress clutched her hands over his slim stomach and blinked rapidly before turning to Anyel to tell her what she had never told another; moreover, she told it with a relieved alacrity that spoke of fourteen years of agonised silence.

"I cannot have children. When I was younger, much younger, I fell in love with a boy my own age. We had little money--he was one of the miners--but we were happy. I was already working at the café, and we saved up enough to rent a flat together. We would eat evening meal together before going dancing in one of the halls. We danced almost every night…." Shmi sighed. "When the halls closed, we would go back home to talk and make love, and hold each other through the night. I think we both thought that it would last forever."

Anyel carefully placed a sheltering arm over Shmi's shoulder, and Shmi leaned into that arm as though they had been friends for years.

"What happened?" the older woman asked gently.

"I became pregnant. He wasn't unhappy. Actually, he was very happy. We both were. Instead of going dancing right after he came home from the mines, we went to the shops to buy baby clothes, a crib, other things. We should have known better than to get our hopes up, but we were only seventeen. What seventeen year old Humans know better?" Shmi laughed quietly, and Anyel briefly joined her, both women exchanging knowing expressions.

"Our joy lasted two months," Shmi sighed.

"Miscarriage?"

"Yes."

They stopped talking as a ship passed, making a tremendous noise as it moved closer to the moon. Only when it landed did Shmi speak again.

"We were devastated, of course, but it wasn't the end of the galaxy. We thought…if I got pregnant once, it could happen again. So we tried. For a year, we tried, and nothing happened. Finally we decided to dig into the credits we'd saved up for when the baby came, and I took a trip to the hospital. They did tests… Internal scarring from the miscarriage. I could never have a baby. _Can_ never have a baby."

"Do you still want one?" Anyel whispered deeply in her ear.

"I suppose I could adopt someday. There are plenty of children who lose their parents here, and it would be better than another one going to the slavers."

"That isn't what I ask." The older woman's voice was sibilant. "I asked it you still want a child of your _own_."

Betrayed, Shmi lifted the arm from her shoulder and laid it back at Anyel's side. "I just told you that I can't have children."

Anyel stepped around to face Shmi directly. She was wearing was wearing a sly smile. "What if I could make it possible?"

"Are you a doctor?" Shmi asked, puzzled.

"No, not a doctor. I am… a researcher of sorts. My teacher was a biologist. I don't claim to understand the entirety of his work, but the miracle he discovered has no boundaries. It does not stop at the threshold of petty human weakness. I say that I can give you a child, and I can."

"Why me? I mean--is it dangerous? Has it been tested?"

The face of her companion moved in even more closely to Shmi's own; her voice dropped to a whisper so minuscule that it seemed she feared eavesdroppers even out on the dusty plain.

"There is a danger, Shmi Skywalker, but it is not what you think. Such a child would be more than human, greater than anything you--or I--have ever encountered. Such a child would blaze in your womb from the moment of conception, and you dreams would burn in tandem. And that is the reason why I have chosen you. I have searched the galaxy for a woman suitable to bear this child, and now I have found her--you. I have found _you_."

Shmi's pulse was raising with the excitement of impossibility. Could it be? Was it truly possible?

"You know I have no money--" she began, anticipating the inevitable let-down.

Anyel's hand slashed decisively through the air next to them. "I am not asking for money. I have no stipulations. Only that you care for her well."

"Her?"

The older woman nodded slowly. "It will be a daughter, I think. According to the research…."

"But how can you know?"

"I ask that you trust me, Shmi. Do you trust me?"

Shmi regarded the woman in front of her with complex puzzlement. In truth she should not trust her, this woman she had just met, this woman who felt so dangerous. Her intuition was screaming at her that something was wrong with this scenario, but Anyel had saved her, quite possibly saved her life, and Shmi had felt a bizarre attraction to the other woman from the very first moment.

"I trust you," she said softly, holding Anyel's eyes and silently asking her to be worthy of that trust.

The blonde nodded solemnly. "I am gratified. Come with me, then, one more time, and together we shall accomplish the impossible."

* * *

They crossed the dust plain in silence. Shmi thought of the future that she had never allowed herself to imagine, the laughing child that had disappeared from her dreams fourteen Standards in the past. Would she have brown hair? Brown eyes? Who would the father be? Was this miracle to be an artificial insemination? And who was this woman who seemed to offer everything, expecting nothing in return? That such immense generosity existed took Shmi's breath away and restored her faith in the benevolence of the galaxy.

At the end of the plain was a field of spaceships, mostly private transport. Anyel moved with surety to a slim, gleaming silver craft, and the hull opened as if in response to her very presence.

"My ship," she said simply in response to Shmi's questioning glance, then called imperiously, "Maul!"

A small Zebrak appeared in response to her summons, bowing as both women stepped into the ship, the gangplank sealing shut behind them.

"My Lady Palpatine," Maul whispered reverently. He flicked at glance at Shmi. "This is she?"

Anyel--Lady Palpatine?--nodded curtly. "Keep to the cockpit until I have need for you."

Maul bowed even more deeply and vanished, seemingly melting into the scant shadows. Shmi fiddled helplessly, suddenly quite uncertain about the entire venture.

"My loyal pilot," Anyel explained with a smile. "Come into my cabin, Shmi. We will be more comfortable there."

The cabin was indeed comfortable. The bed Shmi tentatively sat on was firm but deliciously appointed with a thick, rich red blanket, its quilted surface delicately embroidered in elaborate silver designs that closely resembled the patterns covering its owner's bodice. The bulkhead above the bed was draped with a tapestry portraying some kind of battle, and the ceiling was painted with a perfect representation of a star system.

"You see--there is Naboo," Anyel whispered, sitting down next to Shmi as she pointed to the ceiling. "My home."

Shmi had never heard of it, but it looked beautiful and she said so.

"Thank you. I have always loved my home. There are jungles there, and great oceans of water. My family is from the mountains. The mountain people are lighter in colour than those from the valleys," she explained.

Shmi glanced at the other woman, again admiring her pale, delicate flesh. "Beautiful," she offered again with a clever little smile.

Anyel laughed musically, accepting the compliment with grace. "You are beautiful as well, Shmi. But why do you keep this cloth over your hair?"

Not waiting for an answer, she began to tug at the scarf, pulling it off and letting Shmi's great waterfall of brown locks fall loose down her back.

"There," Anyel whispered. "That is perfect. Now lie back." Gently, she pushed Shmi down on the bed.

"What are you doing?" Shmi asked, feeling very strange.

"Magic," Anyel whispered. The mattress creaked as she laid down next to the waitress. "Relax, now, Shmi, and let it happen."

Shmi wanted to say something, to move, to stand up, but a great languor had quite suddenly descended upon her. Her limbs had become immensely heavy, and her eyelids had inexplicably slid shut. Anyel's delicate fingers touched her slightly parted lips, and Shmi breathed out sharply, only to feel the finger replaced with silky lips.

"Quiet now," Anyel whispered, and Shmi could only obey.

* * *

Senator Palpatine of Naboo rolled away from Shmi Skywalker with a gasp. Her expensive gown was drenched in sweat; her hair had fallen out of its elaborately constructed tower, and her hands were quite literally shaking. It took the very last of her waning strength to hit the intercom and call for Maul.

Her apprentice arrived thirty seconds later, entering smoothly and falling to one knee. "Master."

"Get off the floor, you fool, and help me!" Palpatine snarled.

The Zabrak's intricate tattoos prevented a flush of embarrassment from showing, but the senator was nonetheless certain that one had appeared. Her apprentice leaned over the bed and wrapped one arm around her waist, gently pulling her to her feet and offering his shoulders as a support. Palpatine fervently hoped that Maul would not choose this moment to rise up and take her place; in the event of that choice, there was very little resistance that the Sith Master could offer. The ritual had taken more out of her than she had expected.

"You were successful, Master?" Maul asked.

"I was," Palpatine sighed rapturously. "She will bear the child."

"And her memory?"

"Wiped clean. She will not remember us. Though I almost wish that I could have allowed her to; it would make accessing the child much easier."

"Why did you not?"

Palpatine frowned at Maul. Such questioning was uncharacteristic of her apprentice. Had Maul in truth been emboldened by his master's brief weakness? But looking into his eyes, she saw only reverence. Perhaps the boy was simply curious.

"She is very strong. Worthy to bear the child of prophecy. Had she been born in the Republic, she would have been a Jedi, and she would have been very suited to it. Her core is tremendously calm; she is content with very little, but she will love the child and provide well for it. She will make an excellent mother."

"Why give the child to such an emissary of Light?" Maul asked.

"Ah, Lord Maul. One of the greatest secrets of the life is this: that the greatest darkness is born from the dying of the greatest light." Anyel frowned thoughtfully at the senseless woman still spread out on her bed.

"Is something wrong, Master?" Maul asked hesitantly, clearly still not understanding.

Palpatine narrowed her eyes at her apprentice. "Nothing is wrong, Lord Maul. Go back to the cockpit. I need another moment to complete the ritual."

There was some doubt on Maul's face, perhaps an urge to point out that the ritual was already complete, but he said nothing and followed her instruction. Palpatine swayed on her feet, unsteady from the loss of her support, and sat back down on the bed. Gently, almost wistfully, she brushed a tendril of hair back from Shmi's face.

"Nothing is free," she whispered. "Every gift comes with conditions. I will be back for the child someday."

According to Lord Plagueis's research with lower forms of life, the gender of the Force-crafted offspring depended, much like a natural pregnancy, on the combination of the genes of the two parents. Metaphysical though her contribution was, the child had taken something of Palpatine's DNA, for without two distinctive parents, the offspring would be only a clone of the birthing mother. Therefore this child would be a daughter--the child of two XX chromosome parents could not independently produce a Y. But Palpatine depended on the Force more than she trusted science, and a tentative glimpse into the future assured her that the pregnancy would produce a daughter. Firmly, the Sith Lord placed a hand on Shmi's face and reached into her mind.

"Anaka. You will call our daughter Anaka." In an ancient Nubian tongue, the word was the female form of '_warrior.'_

* * *

Light streaming through her narrow window woke Shmi from a deep, dreamless sleep. Hunger rumbled in her stomach, and she sleepily checked her chronometre, wondering if there were still time for breakfast before she had to go back to work. Her eyes fell on the time, and she leapt out of the bed. She was three hours late!

She had arm inside of her sari and another dragging on a sock when it occurred to her that it was her day off. Panicked air exploded out of her lungs as she dropped back down on her bed.

"Shmi!" the boarding house matron screamed from outside of her door. "Rent !"

"Sorry! I got home late last night! I think…." she muttered as she finished putting on her sari and opened the door.

"What do you mean 'you think?'" the matron demanded.

"I must have. I can't really remember how I got home last night," Shmi muttered as she blindly handed over a handful of credits.

"Where were you?" the matron asked with alarm as she counted the money.

"Just at work. I don't understand what happened," the waitress whispered.

"You must have been dosed," the matron said gently, wrapping an arm around Shmi's shoulder. The touch felt strangely familiar, and she resisted the urge to lean into it.

"I don't think so. I don't feel sick. Perhaps I hit my head, or maybe I was just really tired. I'm sorry that I was late with the rent."

The matron nodded awkwardly and took back her arm with evident relief. "You just stay in and get some rest, now."

Shmi smiled weakly and closed the door behind the other woman, then walked over to the window. She saw small children playing down in the street below, and a sweet ache filled her heart. She touched her empty stomach and swallowed.

"If I had a daughter," she whispered. "I'd call her Anaka."

_LE FIN_

* * *

So! Strange enough for you? I wrote this based on Glen Close's performance in Dangerous Liaisons, to some degree with Veronica Wilson's story 'The Bloodstone,' and finally inspired by my intrigue with the notion of gender-bending in fanfic. I wanted to know how different this story would be with a female Palpatine. I am still contemplating the results!


End file.
